


Winsome Wasp: The Mulish Matchmaker

by Amuly



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Character Study, Friendship, M/M, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 18:10:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13486956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amuly/pseuds/Amuly
Summary: Jan and Tony have known each other since they were rich brats in boarding school. Now they're... still rich brats, but not school anymore!





	Winsome Wasp: The Mulish Matchmaker

**Author's Note:**

> I always meant to clean this up and turn it into something but never got around to it. Originally posted on tumblr a few years ago.

They were eleven and Tony was scared. Jan might have been, but she didn’t seem it.

“And then I’m going to run for student council president in my junior year, because I think by then I’ll have built up my popularity base enough that I’ll be able to do two terms instead of just one, you know? And if I’m already secretary the year before and treasurer the year before  _that_ , then I’ll already have two years experience and I can just skip right over the Vice President position because it’s not like it’s a  _guarantee_  to the presidency or anything. Plus if I throw the best underclassman dance ever when I’m secretary that will be a great running point for me for junior year, since I can have the platform ‘vote for me and you’ll have the best junior-senior prom two years running!’ you know?”

Tony fiddled with his tie, hands itching for something to do, something to build, something to take apart. Jan tutted at him and tugged his tie into place, stepping back with a sharp nod.

“I suppose you’re not going to run for anything, huh?”

Tony shrugged. Glanced over at the too-loud girl who just happened to have a locker next to him. Wondered if this meant they were friends. “I want to graduate early,” he admit, voice soft.

Jan cocked her head. “Oh, like skip senior year? I hear a couple kids did that, with college credits and whatever. But we’re sixth years now: you’ve still got six years worth of extracurriculars you can squeeze in before then. And colleges  _love_  all those extracurriculars.

Tony squirmed. Right. His dad sent him here to grow up. Be a man. Do all those things he needed to do to get into college, get his degree, and take over the business.  

“Maybe I’ll join, uh… ROTC?” Tony ventured.

Jan laughed and slapped his arm. Tony winced but didn’t rub it. She was just a girl. He couldn’t be hurt from a girl.

“ROTC? Tony Stark? You’re just about the tiniest, nerdiest boy here! Why would you want to join the  _army_?”

Tony shrugged and fiddled with the lock on his locker. “Dunno. Dumb idea.”

When his locker fell open Jan sighed dreamily. “Well, there’s  _one_  reason to join the army.” She cooed and stepped forward to pet at his Captain America poster he’d stuck inside his door.

Tony shrugged and wouldn’t meet her eyes.

* * *

 

They were fourteen and Tony was leaving them.

“I’m going to fuck him.”

Jan only spoke like that because her parents didn’t want her to. She was all bluff and no bite.

Tony snapped his teeth at Jan and swept his hair out of his eyes. “You wouldn’t be the first,” he told her.

Jan squealed and punched his shoulder. From across the lab, Tiberius lifted his head and glanced back at the two of them. Jan waggled her fingers coquettishly, inspiring an eye roll from Tiberius before he turned his attention back to his lab.

“You did  _not_ ,” she insisted. “You’re a liar. If you had I would have known, I’m certain of it. The virginity gods would have come to me, in a smokey mist…” Jan waved her hands in front of her face. “'Jaaaaaaan,’ they’d say, ‘We have come to inform you of a momentous occasion. The eternal-virgin, Tony Stark-’”

“Shut  _up_ ,” Tony grumbled, shoving her with his shoulder.

Jan laughed and pretended to fiddle with their lab. They had finished it fifteen minutes ago. “You do have a type, though,” Jan pointed out. “And our dearest Tibby fits it. Big and blond, isn’t that it?”

Tony ducked his head and wouldn’t meet her eyes. But Jan knew him. She didn’t need to see his eyes.

“You know, it’s too bad you’re not coming back in the fall. I’m certain I could have convinced Tiberius to dress up as Captain America for my Halloween bash…”

Tony jerked so hard on his stool that he toppled over. Jan’s laughter was little comfort from his spot on the linoleum floor.

* * *

 

They were twenty. They were both in black.

“Tony, I’m so-”

“Excuse me, Mr. Stark is not receiving-”

“It’s alright, Jarv. It’s just Jan.”

“Tony,” Jan cooed, hurrying past Jarvis’ stalwart silhouette to wrap Tony up in a hug. He was taller than her now. When did he ever get taller than her? When he was away, he supposed. They were always equals, before. Now… Jan seemed so small. Tony felt so awkward, so big. Bigger than he was inside and smaller than he needed to be.

“It’s alright,” Tony choked out, because it seemed like the thing for him to say today.

“No, no, my sweet, of  _course_  it’s not okay,” Jan reprimanded him. She pulled back just enough to get a look at his face. Tony averted his eyes.

“It’ll be okay. You can take some time, you have board members to run the company until you’re ready. Don’t worry, I went through all the same thing when mine went. They knew they were going, though. Mom did, at least. They set up everything to inherit when I’m twenty-three, so it gave me some time… Anyway, don’t worry, Tony. I’m here, I can help, whatever you want.”

“What I want…” Tony murmured. He blinked dry eyes. “What I want is to get trashed and get fucked by a big blond.”

“We can do that, too,” Jan promised him.

The next morning Jan was in his kitchen, making herself an egg white omelette in a man’s shirt and bare legs. Tony limped over to her and folded himself over the counter. Jan’s tiny hand rubbed soothing circles over his back.

“Better?”

“No,” Tony murmured. His stomach wasn’t going to last long. His upper lip was already breaking out in a cold sweat.

“You won’t be,” Jan reassured him as she removed her hand. “Not for a while.”

* * *

 

They were twenty-seven and doing the impossible.

Jan leapt into Tony’s arms after she returned home from the battle, kissing both his cheeks with enthusiasm. “Did Iron Man report back? Did you see?”

Tony spun Jan in a circle before setting her down. He ignored the crick in his back from where Sidewinder had thrown him into a building. “I saw. You were magnificent, as always. And Iron Man has nothing but glowing reviews of your performance.”

Jan winked at him. “See! What’d I say, all those ancient, ancient years ago? Tony Stark isn’t going to save the world by being some 'roided up government stooge. Tony Stark is going to save the world the way only he can!”

Tony snorted. “Sure, by throwing money at the problem.”

Jan tutted at him as she started away for the Avengers locker room. “Don’t be stupid, Tony: you’re so very bad at it.” She waved her hand over her shoulder as Tony watched her go.

* * *

 

They were twenty-seven and six months and the last two in the Avengers war room. Tony trailed his hand over the table, feeling the texture with his flesh and blood hand instead of his mechanical one.

“Well, Mr. Stark.”

“Well, Winsome Wasp.”

Jan stayed quiet for all of two seconds before she exploded. “Go! Aren’t you going to go?! Aren’t you going to show him around, help him get settled in?”

Something hot and needy and terribly, terribly young unfurled in Tony’s chest. He tamped it down. “I’m sure Mr. Rogers-”

“Steve!! Steve Rogers!”

“-needs some time to himself. He’s been through quite a shock.”

“Help him break in that bed!” Jan continued, utterly ignoring Tony’s attempt to be a mature adult about the situation.

Tony sighed and tapped his thousand dollar loafers on the million dollar mansion floors. “Jan, he’s from the nineteen forties. Even if he wasn’t trying to get over the fact that everyone he knew, everyone he loved is dead or close to it-”

Jan waved her hand. “Don’t give me that 'oh no I’m going to scare him with my male gayness for his hot body,’ bullshit. The sixties didn’t  _invent_  gay.”

“I was going to say he’s mourning, Jan,” Tony told her. Jan actually did stop at that, close her mouth as her expression softened. “He needs time.”

Jan crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. “We all mourn differently. Maybe what _he_  needs…”

“I don’t want to be that for him,” Tony pointed out.

Jan shook her head and stomped away. But not very well, thanks to the fashionable little ballet slippers she was wearing.

* * *

 

Tony was twenty-nine and sitting on the couch, laughing himself silly as Steve yelled at the TV.

“What about the artillery?! What, do they think canons and shells are just  _background_  noise? What the hell is this? What is  _that_  guy doing? That’s a really swell way to get yourself killed- oh, for… Damn it! I did  _not_  do that! I don’t think I  _can_  do that. How many wires did they string that guy up with? Okay, that forest is completely the _wrong_  color, this happened in  _March_ , why the hell- no, look, I’m making a list. No, Tony, seriously, I need to make a list so I can explain in order everything that’s wrong with this. Historically accurate my  _ass_. Where’s the nurses? Hang on, where’s my pencil.”

Between bouts of laughter Tony caught sight of a red and black shape out of the corner of his eye. He glanced up, past a still-grumbling Steve, into the kitchen. Jan was there, dressed only in a little negligee and tugging two glasses out of the cupboard. As she turned towards the fridge she spotted Tony looking. She looked down at the two glasses, shrugged, and mouthed: blonds. Glancing over to his side where Steve’s blond head was bent over a pad of paper in his lap, Tony looked back at Jan and shrugged. Then he nodded in agreement.

Jan giggled silently and nodded at Steve. Then, in a gesture that was impressively lewd considering she was still holding two glasses, Jan explained exactly what she thought Tony should be doing about his particular blond. Tony shook his head, but his cheeks heated with the threat of a blush he thought he had trained himself out of. Jan nodded in counter to his rejection, then pounded one of her fists into the other before pointing at Tony. Tony nodded and held up his hands in surrender. Yes, he understood the consequences if he didn’t make a move. Eventually.

After she got her drinks Jan flitted away with her usual quiet and Tony settled back alongside Steve on the couch. After another sustained rant, Tony turned to Steve and, apropos of nothing, asked “Steve, you want to get dinner sometime?”

“I-” Steve blinked, then shook his head. Tony could actually see his brain changing gears. “Dinner- oh. Uh. Oh!”

As a smile crept across Steve’s face, Tony relaxed back into his chair. And wondered whatever happened to that tatty old Captain America poster from his locker. Maybe he’d stick it in a nice frame and give it to a certain mulish matchmaker he knew.

 


End file.
